Archive for September 2010

Irrefutable proof that a local newspaper headline about the littering habits of late-night drunks can have an instant effect on the area’s property markets:

Thanks to Gordon Skillen for taking this recent photo of a billboard for the Bournemouth Daily Echo. Anyone looking to capitalise on falling house prices should probably start looking in Bournemouth now.

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Another example of a regional newspaper’s letters page being used for a heavily sarcastic public ‘thank you’. This time it’s thank you for NOTHING.

The anger in this letter keeps building wonderfully, much like foam freshly sprayed from a can.

South Wales Echo, 4 September 2010:

A big thanks for nothing

A BIG and special thank you to those lovely people in Penarth town centre who, on Saturday, August 28, did nothing.

They were sitting or standing in the bus stop or standing outside shops or passing by and numbly watched me, an innocent small Chinese woman being surrounded by a gang of teenagers and attacked by one of them spraying canned foam at me in broad daylight.

Thank you all for your apathy and unsupportiveness towards such brazen, violent, bullying behaviour!

Just be aware that this kind of similar situation will happen to you one day and you will know what it feels like to be attacked and no-one helps.

You, the one who attacked me, should be feeling lucky because I did not beat the living daylights out of you when I could.

Bullying makes my blood boil and I never tolerate it!

You thought you would be considered a hero amongst your friends just because you picked a weak-looking Chinese woman and attacked her and then ran away. You are wrong. If you have a brain, you will regret one day for having stood out as a bully “leader”.

Alright luv, you’ve said your piece… it’s best to just try and put it behind you now. For your own sake, more than anything.

Oh, go on then…

You were bullying me with joy. However, one day you will sadly be bullied by somebody else, and one day you mother will be bullied, and your father, your brothers and sisters, and your friends and your friends’ friends and their families.

This will go on and on and on… and you might not be “lucky” to be attacked by just a can of foam.

I was kind of relieved when you said sorry across the road and I was glad for you.

I hope your sorry is genuine from the bottom of your heart.

That means you still have the consciousness for shame and your life has still a light of hope. Otherwise I will feel sorry for you!

A helpless Chinese woman
Name and address supplied

All of that, just for a bit of foam in the face. Imagine all of the letters Dick and Dom must have had over the years.

Despite offering to stump up for the damage, the Townhill travel agent has been told she is not allowed back.

Furious Lorna, of Main Street, started playing darts as she waited for her flatmate to finish her shift last month.

An emergency plumber had to be called out at 3.30am when her long-range dart throw pierced a heater underneath the board.

She said, “It’s a stupid place to have a dartboard.

“I’ve held up my hands and said I wasn’t playing properly and was messing about but it was a complete accident.

“Every single person I have spoken to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous,” she said.

“The regional manager said it was my disrespect towards the pub that got me barred but I could not respect that pub more.

“But it’s safe to say I will not be entering any tournaments,” added Lorna.

She ‘could not respect that pub more’, but it’s doubtful the pub owners will appreciate news coverage which appears to expose the fact they regularly have lock-ins until 3.30am, in breach of licensing laws. A surefire act of revenge on Lorna’s part.

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For most people, a ‘thank you’ letter conjures distant childhood memories of being forced to put pen to paper and thank an auntie for the hideous jumper she sent for a birthday.

But it appears there are people out there – some of them possibly even adults – who actually enjoy saying ‘thank you’ and enjoy it so bloody much that they’ll do it publicly in their local newspaper’s letters page.

Huddersfield Examiner, 24 July 2010:

I WOULD like to express my thanks to the gentleman who handed my bank card into the cashier at Marsh Co-op on Monday, June 21.

I was in so much pain with my arthritis and anxious to get home to take my painkillers I stupidly left my card in the cash point.

All I can say is thank God there are at least a few truthful decent people living in Marsh.

Due to my stupidity, it could have ended up in the hands of some drug dealer, of which there are many in Marsh.

Again, thank you whoever you are.

Laura, Marsh

Whitehaven News, 14 July 2010:

SIR – On the afternoon after Whitehaven Carnival, I was walking along the harbour and fell and injured myself.

A big thank you to the person who kindly put a coat under my head to make me more comfy. Also to the lady that went to Tesco to fetch my wife.

All these people know who they are so a big thank you to all concerned.

Brian HUMPHREYS
Whitehaven

Do they realistically expect the people concerned to be poring over the letters page every day in hope of finally getting the thanks they deserve for their good deeds? It appears so.

Don’t make do with a quick ‘thank you’ where the laborious details of your every move will do…

Halifax Evening Courier, 22 June 2010:

Imagine coming home and finding you are locked out of your house.

What would you do? Well thanks to a police officer and a taxi driver we managed to get in our house. We told our mum we would not be taking our keys with us when we went out and to not lock the door, but we arrived home to an empty house and a locked door and thanks to a neighbour we were informed that she had gone out.

We find ourselves stuck in Boothtown sat outside the Spar garage at 3am on Sunday morning when a policeman pulled in…he managed to give us a lift to ABC taxis who then took us to Brighouse train station to meet our sister to get her house keys so we could get in.

By 4.15am we managed to get in the house and are now watching Rocky on DVD.

To the policeman in question, the taxi driver and the neighbour in nearby flats…thank you.

Sam and Jo Hoyle

They wrote a letter to a newspaper at 4.15am at the same time as watching Rocky on DVD. Never in all my life…

IS this Redcar moggy Britain’s most adventurous cat? Joanne Stephens of Redcar is celebrating after her pet, Jerry, leaped into the national finals of the Go-Cat Bobo Awards.

The awards – named after the feline star of Go-Cat’s latest TV ads – are given to the most adventurous cats in Britain.

Now judges have chosen Jerry as one of 12 finalists from nearly 800 entries. And if he wins first prize, he could bag Joanne an African safari to see some really big cats, plus a year’s supply of Go-Cat.

Cheeky Jerry’s habit of following Joanne into the shower is just one escapade which really appealed to the judges. But not content with getting wet, Jerry then runs up and downstairs to shake himself dry.

No way! ‘CHARACTER’ alert…

He also enjoys climbing curtains, pinching pizza and trying to climb out of the bathroom window.

Get out of here! BONKERZ.

He has a habit, too, of hiding Joanne’s belongings in the house – to the point where some items are yet to be recovered.

Merciless thieving little shit. Lock him up.

One of the worst things about the awful British consensus that ‘pets = good’ is, of course, the smug and self-satisfied gobshite tendencies of the people who own them. Just shut up, shut up, shut up. Please shut up. Shut. Up.

Joanne said: “Jerry’s adventures are more often than not, very noisy. If he starts one of his manic escapades in the evening, there isn’t any peace in our house.

“He loves attention when he’s awake and while we’re trying to sleep, he loves playing alarm clocks by running up the stairs with a squeaky rubber toy in his mouth.

“If only you could see him 24/7 you would be so tired!”

Jerry is also in the running to win the Indoor Cat category.

I wonder if Go-Cat will be introducing a Wheelie Bin category next year? Now that could be worth some media coverage…

‘Britney Spears’ cross-dresser charged with breaking ASBO banning him from wearing schoolgirl outfit in public

A cross-dresser has appeared in court charged with breaching an anti-social behaviour order which bans him from loitering outside primary schools in Northampton wearing a Britney Spears-style schoolgirl uniform.

Peter Trigger, aged 60, of Farndon Close in Thorplands, was barred from baring his legs in public during the school run under the terms of his five-year ASBO, which was imposed by magistrates in December 2008.

Parents walking with their children to nearby Woodvale Primary School had claimed Trigger had bent over, shown his bare thighs and indicated he was wearing no underwear.

He is banned from wearing a skirt or showing bare legs on a school day between 8.30am and 10am and between 2.45pm and 4pm.

When the initial order was made, Northampton Borough Council said he was entitled to wear whatever he wanted, but not if it caused “alarm or distress” to the public.